Animals can mean different things to different people. Some are a source of food and clothing, others help to herd or protect other animals and some serve simply as friendly companions. They have also long been used to describe people or to portray their qualities or personality traits. For example, someone can be described with: ‘as quick as a cat,’ or ‘as wise as an owl’ or ‘as quiet as a mouse.’ Animals are also often used as metaphors or to help describe characters in novels and short stories. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz each contain animal imagery and comparisons of characters to animals. This paper will examine and analyze how animal motifs are used in the two novels and how they are used to describe people. This is because the use of animals functions as way to create vivid images in the mind of the reader, and gives a positive or negative connotation that is paired with each animal.
A pig is not presented formally in either novel but each author puts the animal’s image in the reader’s mind. Pablo and Pedro Vacario set out to avenge the destroyed honour of their sister Angela in Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The twins go to a pigsty to pick up the weapons they plan to use to kill Santiago Nasar, the man accused of stealing their sister’s honour. The knives are the same ones they use to butcher pigs. “The Vicario Twins went to the bin in the pigsty where they kept their sacrificial tools and picked out the two best knives.”[1] The slaughtering of animals is a way of life in the small village portrayed by Marquez and the residents seem very casual in the way they deal with the two brothers even though Pablo and Pedro tell everyone quite clearly that they are planning to kill Santiago Nasar. The butcher seems to think they are lying and the police officer simply takes away their knives but does not detain them. The brothers return to the pigsty, take two other knives and eventually...